Left-Wing Kibbutzim Don't Want Infiltrators

The 1,200 infiltrators being freed after leftist pressure are looking for communities to host them, but socialists don't want them.

Gil Ronen, 25/08/15 15:05

Infiltrators

Flash 90

Activists in leftist “human rights” organizations have attempted, in recent days, to locate kibbutz communities that would be willing to temporarily house illegal infiltrators who are being freed from the Holot detention facility – but to no avail.

According to Haaretz, none of the kibbutz communities that were contacted has responded favorably thus far.

The circumstance is ironic, since the infiltrators owe their freedom to unflagging efforts on their behalf by leftist organizations, whereas the kibbutzim – which were founded on the basis of a socialist ideology of agricultural communalism – are bastions of leftism.

Jewish Home activist Lev Solodkin wrote about the matter on Facebook and asked the “kibbutzniks” to show some ideological consistency. He noted that 17% of kibuutz residents voted for Meretz in the last election, and 57% voted for the Zionist union, both of which support the High Court's soft approach to the infiltrator issue.

The Zionist Union's platform, Solodkin added, calls for solutions that will “encourage geographical dispersal” of the infiltrators throughout Israel and “will prevent a situation in which disenfranchised populations and isolated local government councils are saddled with a social and economic burden.”

He asked the kibbutz communities to take in the infiltrators – “or stop voting for parties that encourage a social and demographic catastrophe in southern Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Arad and communities that are less fortunate.”

'Nowhere to go'

"There are people who have nowhere to go,” an infiltrator named Anwar Suliman told the leftist newspaper. “They are starting from scratch. They have no apartments, they have nothing.”

About 1,200 infiltrators will be freed Tuesday and Wednesday from the Holot open detention center in the Negev, following a High Court decision two weeks ago that the Law for Prevention of Infiltration was too harsh, and determined that the infiltrators may only be kept at Holot for one year and not 20 months.

About 600 infiltrators will be released Tuesday and the rest will go free Wednesday. The release process includes giving the individual infiltrators money, documents, medical certificates and medicines for those who require them. Along with the release letter, they will receive a sandwich and a soft drink.

The infiltrators are supposedly forbidden from heading to Tel Aviv and Eilat, but no one knows how this instruction will be enforced.

Interior Minister Silvan Shalom threatened Monday that the infiltrators released from Holot who reach Tel Aviv or Eilat will be sent to Saharonim prison.